A VANCOUVER ENGLISH-AS-A-SECOND-LANGUAGE TEACHER'S LINKS TO HIS FAVORITE ONLINE TEACHING RESOURCES, WITH ADVICE AND COMMENTARY FOR ESL TEACHERS.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Technology is wonderful when it works

All teachers must strike a balance between actively lobbying for resources that they want and coming to terms with the resources that they actually have.

The challenge is especially striking when it comes to computer hardware.

Last week, the ancient computer monitor in our teachers' room started acting funny. The picture went fuzzy and then shrunk to a small point of light in the centre of the screen. After a few seconds, the MS Word screen came back online - upside down.

When faced with this situation, what should the teacher do? Choose one of the following.A. Turn off the monitor, then turn it back on and hope it starts working again.B. Call tech support.C. Get the bottle of whiskey that is kept for exactly these sorts of situations out of the drawer.D. Turn the monitor upside down so that the screen will appear right-side-up.

Of course, any of the above suggestions might be appropriate. If you look carefully at the picture above, you will see what we did.